“The skills of the entrepreneur can be learned, since more than a character trait it is a conduct, an attitude; defines the entrepreneur as the person capable of intuiting a business opportunity and putting into action arduous, creative, difficult and risky actions, which end in the creation of a company or business ”. Peter Drucker.
When with some serendipity at the end of 2006 I developed the Personal Entrepreneur Plan Workshop (PEP), I never imagined that I would hear so many Dreams…
The Workshop is developed following the methodology of Appreciative Inquiry which is a philosophy of change that starts from the premise "discover what gives life to a human system and then let it flow." Therefore, Workshop participants discover their strengths and project them into the future.
In a first phase, a dialogue is carried out in pairs with the purpose of discovering the positive entrepreneurial potential that exists in each individual. This allows knowing what works best for each person and what must be preserved to achieve sleep.
In the second phase, the participant must visualize their greatest entrepreneurial potential in a given future.
That is where they have told me their dreams, hundreds of dreams…
I have heard dreams from private university and public university students, students from various majors (engineering, communication, administration, marketing, human resources, and students from many other things), professionals and colleagues, metalworkers and other workers, public and private., of men and women from Montevideo and also from the interior (Maldonado, Rivera, Soriano, Cerro Largo, Lavalleja), are dreams of people who want to do, dreams of entrepreneurs…
Tomorrow these entrepreneurs start small companies, which later become medium and large. They generate business, they create the wealth of a region and a country, giving work to others. They are the true generators of employment since that role is no longer occupied by large companies or the State. Strictly speaking, in the process of efficiency, the opposite occurs, they tend to expel labor. On the other hand, small companies are the true generators of wealth, contributing effort and creativity.
This process by which there are people who dare to take risks, is what generates new economic units, is primarily responsible for the level of employment in a country and the true generators of wealth. There is or there is no more work to the extent that there are people capable of generating new companies, healthy businesses and after doing so, these are maintained, survive and help them grow. This is how it develops and the benefits are permeated throughout society looking for its future.
This is not easy at all; Even in countries with a favorable business environment, such as the US, four out of five companies that are born do not reach the fifth year of life.
But the ones that fail are the companies, not the entrepreneurs who created them. They develop tolerance for failure and learn from their own mistakes. Statistically, the entrepreneur is successful in the third company he creates.
Favoring this process means actions by civil society and governments, to encourage more people to create companies (increase the birth rate). Once functioning, assist them, accompany them, in order to reduce the mortality rate.
And in the consolidation stage, aim at its growth, transformation and connection between small companies to achieve groups that can successfully appear in the international market.
More important than the project (the effectiveness of what they are going to do), is the protagonist who undertakes, that is, developing the entrepreneur himself.
Research shows that it is not possible to find a good plan if before there is no "good entrepreneur", a subject who undertakes sufficiently motivated and trained.
The experience also pays attention to other variables such as the attitudes that people have, because these are the entry way for new knowledge, mastery of tools and their application (competences: abilities and skills).
Attitudes are acquired, just as the person has acquired what he now has.
Attitudes, knowledge and habits come together in the culture, which blesses some and devalues others. That he has some archetypes as heroes, but it does not occur to him that someone who opens his factory at 6 in the morning and generates endless activities and jobs could be.
Heroes and antiheroes, the entrepreneur is not even seen by young people, since many of his behaviors belong to this useful and valuable social character. Indeed, it is the entrepreneurs, for example, who organize the graduates' trip and obtain the resources for it.
But at the same time, it seems that all formal, primary, secondary, university education is intended to generate only the "good employee", that is, the good manager, engineer, the good supervising technician or employee, etc. The paradigm of an outstanding university student would be to enter a large company, where he will progress to a certain point, but he will never be its creator or owner.
We get good employees just when that nucleus of companies, large, state and / or multinationals, generate fewer and fewer jobs due to greater use of capital, technology or outsourcing of activities. Students are oriented towards the good employee when there is less and less employment, while what there is is more "work".
There is less work in a dependency relationship, but more opportunities to create work for oneself ("self-employed") and also for others. There are numerous opportunities to respond to needs, which lead to the generation of products or services, which, after they have been "worked", provide much more than a salary.
To all this adds the gratification of seeing the idea realized, the dream come true, the organization, the products, the satisfaction of the people who buy or use them.
The business entrepreneur is a pragmatic person who solves problems (satisfies needs) of other people and earns money. There are also social entrepreneurs, NGO founders, cultural, educational, sports, and university entrepreneurs, all activities that build the spiritual and material wealth of a region or country.
There are entrepreneurs in the ranks of the State, the one who takes risks, who has initiative, who organizes, who tests, who fails and gets up and tries again.
Entrepreneurs have what the English call " need to achievement ", which in Spanish translates as " need to achieve ", to bring an idea to reality, to make it work, to make things happen.
The need for achievement is the great universal fuel, and the entrepreneur happily goes through many sacrifices, and has the ability to postpone gratifications in pursuit of his goals.
The entrepreneur is not born, he is made. It is self-made, more or less easily if it has an "environment", a favorable culture, guidance and support. Perseverance is what separates people on the road. Perseverance is reinforced if others are appreciated to persevere until their achievements are reached.
People with different perseverance can be accompanied pedagogically in their habit formation, and all will progress somewhat. What accompaniment cannot do is replace their need for achievement, the drive or the pleasure that it means for them to see the things they dreamed of already accomplished.
What you cannot do is generate dreams. It has been found that, for multiple reasons, there are young and old who have given up dreaming, who do not live but have chosen to survive. That there are people for whom the blame is always someone else's or they think they are prey to circumstances, from the outside. People who live in what is called "the victim's speech".
Usually one lives in an environment with a culture where connecting with one's own need for achievement is difficult and sometimes impractical, because most of the time there is no basis for support: we like crafts, but we do not make the effort and research so that products are positioned in certain market segments, who are willing to pay for it. And then, the artisans end up delivering pizza on a motorcycle.
In the short term, this forces people to work for others who are encouraged.
But this will be so until an environment with another culture is achieved and then many more people will consider that destiny. When there are more who are encouraged to connect with their need for achievement, more will be those who rationally advance to materialize it.
Entrepreneurs need a framework that helps them create that environment and also helps them connect with the fabric of the state apparatus, as well as with other institutions such as banks, consultancies, NGOs, providers of infinite services, etc. where they can support and help them, and they can compete and grow.
Thanks to the PEP I have heard hundreds of dreams, what are we going to do to take advantage of this formidable intangible asset?
"No one should be appointed to a leadership position if their vision focuses on weaknesses, rather than on people's strengths." Peter Drucker.
